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The Raven Blog

We write tips for digital marketers and we create beginner through advanced guides for search engine optimization. Improve your SEO and Content Marketing game.

How To Create Content Publishers Love: A Q&A With Kelsey Libert

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New Feature: Custom, Interactive, Beautiful Online Marketing Reports

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3 Tactics To Stretch Your Organic Marketing with LinkedIn

Written by and published

How To Write Meta Descriptions for Maximum Clicks

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15 Free Tools for Instant Content Ideas (and 2 Paid Ones)

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3 Good Reasons Not To Use Animated GIFs in Emails

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Evolution of a Press Release Freak Out

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48 tips for SEO newbies from 48 experienced SEOs

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Do you have original content? Take the quiz.

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How to pitch a client without putting them on the defensive

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8 writing triggers you should never ignore

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6 content marketing lessons from the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show

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How Raven’s smart reporting makes money for an agency

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5 ways Raven helped this agency grow & retain clients

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Orbitz and online marketing: lessons from the Mac story

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Ultimate list of online content readability tests

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11 ideal times to write

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8 content marketing and strategy resources you’re probably missing

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Social media monitoring for strategic business decisions

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Why Raven employees have Raven in their Twitter handles

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Posts written by Arienne Holland

publishers-love-istock
By Arienne Holland

November, 2014

How To Create Content Publishers Love: A Q&A With Kelsey Libert

No matter what you call it — link building, content promotion, blogger outreach, relationship building, content outreach — getting online publishers to pay attention to your pitches is harder than ever. Kelsey Libert knows exactly what types of content online publishers want most. We ask her advice for executing content campaigns that succeed.


Raven interactive marketing reports
By Arienne Holland

September, 2014

New Feature: Custom, Interactive, Beautiful Online Marketing Reports

What would you do with more time? Imagine that you finish work an hour early today. Done — no lingering tasks. Will you cook supper instead of grabbing fast food? Take the dogs for a walk? Go to bed early? Extra time is precious. It’s a gift that Raven strives to give busy marketers every day. That’s why […]


LinkedIn Featured Image
By Arienne Holland

April, 2014

3 Tactics To Stretch Your Organic Marketing with LinkedIn

You may have heard that LinkedIn is the next big thing for B2B marketing. Pinterest is where the consumers are and LinkedIn is where the businesses are. OK, maybe. But you shouldn’t underestimate LinkedIn’s value for all marketers, especially when it comes to organic marketing. Whether you’re an SEO, a content marketer, a social media […]


How To Write Meta Descriptions for Maximum Clicks
By Arienne Holland

January, 2014

How To Write Meta Descriptions for Maximum Clicks

They’re easy to ignore and time consuming to write. But well-written meta descriptions — a.k.a. snippets — can strongly influence the amount of traffic that your website receives from a specific search result. It’s important to know what details they should contain, in what format, so that machines can read them easily and display the […]


15 Free Tools for Instant Content Ideas (and 2 Paid Ones)
By Arienne Holland

November, 2013

15 Free Tools for Instant Content Ideas (and 2 Paid Ones)

Listen to this short clip, then say aloud the first word that comes to mind: Click here to listen. What word did you think first? Stinky? Yellow? Cheddar? Shredded? Nachos? All five words are related to “cheese,” and yet all five are related in completely different ways. Stinky: how cheese smells. Yellow: how cheese looks. […]


3 Good Reasons Not To Use Animated GIFs in Emails
By Arienne Holland

October, 2013

3 Good Reasons Not To Use Animated GIFs in Emails

It’s hard to be an email marketer. Copywriters have to grab attention in cluttered inboxes with original-yet-proven-to-work subject lines. Designers have to keep attention despite compatibility issues that take coding right back to 1998. And when major retailers have to start sending campaigns like this, you know those new Gmail tabs are really making life […]


how-to-use-press-releases
By Arienne Holland

August, 2013

Evolution of a Press Release Freak Out

Public relations professionals are paid to stay calm during a crisis. And that’s exactly what most of them did after Google’s recent link schemes guidelines update. SEOs, however, flipped out. And PR distribution services — who have been advertising the SEO benefits of using their networks for years — had to make quick decisions about […]


SEO tips for newbies - Main
By Arienne Holland

May, 2013

48 tips for SEO newbies from 48 experienced SEOs

A few weeks ago, we asked Raven’s Facebook Page fans, who are some seriously experienced SEOs, this question: “If someone new to SEO asked you for your BEST piece of advice, what would you say?” Everyone had tips for SEO newbies. A few themes emerged — educate yourself, pay attention to content, find another job. […]


Do you have original content? Take the quiz.
By Arienne Holland

May, 2013

Do you have original content? Take the quiz.

At last count, the Internet had 389 gagillionbillionzillion pages of content. As we quest to figure out what quality content is, let’s start with original content. Do you have it? If you have ever taken a Cosmo quiz about your flirting skills, you know how this works. For every question, choose one answer. Add your […]


Practicing defensive moves
By Arienne Holland

March, 2013

How to pitch a client without putting them on the defensive

You missed your daughter’s school fall festival. You missed half the vacation that was supposed to relax you. Hell, you missed most of your 30s. All for the sake of the business you pumped life into. And now some kid tells you that your website has serious problems? And you have to fix them right […]


trigger-main
By Arienne Holland

January, 2013

8 writing triggers you should never ignore

Ever had a migraine? One of those eyesight-blurring, arm-tingling, nausea-inducing, skull-exploding headstorms that makes you crawl to the nearest dark room immediately and curl up like a grub? If not, count your blessings. If you have, then you know how important it is not to ignore triggers. A trigger is a thing that sparks a […]


Victoria's Secret Fashion Show Fantasy Bra
By Arienne Holland

December, 2012

6 content marketing lessons from the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show

If you invested in a $2.5 million bra, you’d want the world to see it. Preferably on a supermodel like Alessandra Ambrosio. Victoria’s Secret has taken its annual fashion show from a simple showcase of everyday lingerie to an orchestrated spectacle of fantasy costumes — such as the 2012 Floral Fantasy Bra with more than […]


Raven SEO and Social Media Sample Report
By Arienne Holland

October, 2012

How Raven’s smart reporting makes money for an agency

Regular reports are critical for retaining clients. With them, clients are reassured (even if they don’t read them). Without them, clients wonder exactly what they’re paying you for. You know this. All smart marketers know this. On the other hand, reporting is the single most time-consuming, tedious task of the month. The smartest marketers let […]


love-sculpture
By Arienne Holland

September, 2012

5 ways Raven helped this agency grow & retain clients

It’s a thin line between love and obsession. That’s the case for PPC expert and entrepreneur John Rampton when he’s describing his feelings for Raven. By day, John is part of the Internet marketing agency team at Maple North in Toronto. By night, John works on growing PPC.org, a tips-and-tricks site, and Blogging.org, a content […]


Orbitz and online marketing: lessons from the Mac story
By Arienne Holland

June, 2012

Orbitz and online marketing: lessons from the Mac story

The big tech talker this week—well, before Google parachuted some people onto Moscone Center in San Francisco—was about Orbitz varying its search results based on computer type. Orbitz showed Mac users more higher-priced hotels higher up in the listings. Why? Because Mac users were more likely to book them anyway, Orbitz said. Now customers were […]


By Arienne Holland

June, 2012

Ultimate list of online content readability tests

“In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. ‘Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,’ he told me, ‘just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.’” Can you read the above paragraph […]


napkin doodles
By Arienne Holland

May, 2012

11 ideal times to write

“Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day,” Orson Scott Card said. “The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don’t see any.” If you’re a good writer, the key is knowing when and how to capture the ideas when they come. There are those who espouse […]


8 content marketing and strategy resources you’re probably missing
By Arienne Holland

May, 2012

8 content marketing and strategy resources you’re probably missing

Without futher ado, because this is one of those headlines that says everything: Content Strategy Google Group This group started in 2008—yes, that’s at least how long content advocates have been advocating—and it’s still my first stop when I want to know what content folks are talking about. The group is active, but not overwhelming […]


Social media monitoring for strategic business decisions
By Arienne Holland

February, 2012

Social media monitoring for strategic business decisions

There’s nothing like 30 Rock satire. When I started talking at Social Media Explorer’s inaugural Explore event for social media marketers in Dallas last week, I wasn’t sure if the concept of using social media exclusively to listen for business strategies was too simple, too advanced or too boring. 30 Rock to the rescue. [slideshare […]


Raven Twitter Screenname
By Arienne Holland

November, 2011

Why Raven employees have Raven in their Twitter handles

It’s a question we get a lot. If Raven has a main company Twitter account—@RavenTools—then why do Raven employees use Raven Twitter handles, too? Like this @RavenJon (Jon Henshaw) This question has come up again this week, with recent news that one company is suing a former employee for “keeping” his Twitter followers when he […]